Terra, Morte? DIRECTORS CUT
by The Golden Gael
Summary: Re-release of my first fic. The Titans find a way to get Terra out of her stone prison, and hold a vot on whether they should, or not. Revised and expanded from the original, with an alternate ending included. Enjoy!
1. Default Chapter

Greetings,

My short but lengthening career writing these fanfics has been, thus far, deeply fulfilling. I've had reactions to the three (with a fourth one to come shortly) stories I've written that have absolutely floored me. Know that every kind word you all have said to me has been read, and recorded, and I'll not soon forget them, and to say thank you, I present this, a re-release of my first Titans fanfic.

It was a fairly easy one to write, and I did it in two and a half days, and uploaded the whole thing all at once, which I guess means it kind of got under the radar, and only got one review. That isn't why I'm releasing it again, but I felt it should be pointed out. Anyway, this re-release has been expanded and revised, and now contains an alternate ending (just so everyone, whether you like Terra or not, can enjoy the work). I must say, going back to a story that you've already written, however easy it was the first time, is kind of like eating a piece of gum that has been stuck to the underside of your desk for two months and left to harden...but I digress.

So now I present "Terra Morte? The Directors Cut", I'll release it slowly, probably a chapter every other day, for probably five chapters or so (depending on how much revising and expanding I actually do, of course. Remember, two month old gum...yummy). As far as dedications go, I dedicate it to you, reader, for actually taking the time to open this window and dedicate any small amount of your life to reading _my _crap. For that, and for your reviews (whether you leave them or not, it matters little, as long as you read my story and enjoy it, I am happy), you all have my eternal thanks. Now, go on, read, and enjoy!

Stuart Livermore AKA The Golden Gael.

March 21st 2005

Terra, Morte?

1.

There was a dark figure flying through the city, over streets and people alike. No, flying is the wrong word, _swinging_ is much more appropriate. In the dark, you can't see the wire he's swinging on, or the piece of machinery it was fired from, which is clasped in his right hand. You couldn't see them, but you know they're there. In his hand, his left hand, was his precious cargo, which he has come all the way from Gotham City to deliver. Precious, precious cargo. It was inside a glass tube, presented almost as a relic from a former era, under glass, preserved, forever perfect. But this was not a relic, and to be fair, it was not as well preserved as it once had been. No, once it had been solid stone, slowly doing nothing and quickly going nowhere in some deep dark cave under the city. The dark man knew about cave's, but not much in the way of being stone. Still, when an old friend dropped by to ask a special favour, he felt compelled to oblige. For some reason, he felt indebted to this old friend, he somehow owed him something. Certainly the way they parted was on less than amiable terms, and that phone call he made must have been a dagger in his side, just killing him.

He landed on a rooftop and ran across it, firing a new line out and swinging through the air again.

The cargo in question was a lock of human hair. He'd taken the time and effort to bind it with a length of red string, just to keep all of the evidence together in a neat bundle. Not that he was bragging, he just didn't want to lose any of it, it seemed important, after all. He swung quickly towards his destination, which was about as inconspicious as a Christmas tree coloured hot pink (and quite a bit brighter than one), and as headquarters went, it was more than a little gaudy. He supposed that was the opinion one gathered when one made one's own base of operation in a cave, albeit a cave with a big car and an obscenely expensive computer inside of it, but a cave nonetheless. This was a tower, a massive, multi-story, to-big-for-five-people, T shaped tower, it did nothing for the scape of the city really, but who was he to judge?

In any case, he wasn't going to be setting foot in the thing anyway, it was on an island and largely inaccessible, so he was going to be meeting his old friend on the shore, and he, his friend, was going to take the lock of blonde hair, tied with red string, the rest of the way.

Yes, Batman was going to meet Robin. A reunion he was sure neither of them was looking forward to, and one that was sure to be brief, and rather to the point.

He landed on the street in rather dramatic fashion, and walked the rest of the way, lightly fingering the flask he held. He wasn't sure exactly what its significance was, he just knew the bare bone facts. Turns out the girl that this hair belonged to had caused a whole lot of trouble, emptied out this very city and nearly killed the hero's who protected it. Did all that, but redeemed herself, even managed to rid the world of the infamous criminal Slade. She was a friend, then an enemy, and a friend again, but in redeeming herself she managed to turn herself into a statue, go figure. Robin had been a little sketchy on the details, which meant he wanted to keep it an internal affair amongst him and his other Teen Titans. He rarely ever told Batman anything these days, anyway, which suited Batman just fine. All birds eventually needed to learn to fly on their own, after all.

He stopped walking and lifted his attention away from the hair in his hand; someone was close.

"You've still got to work on that." He said, apparently, to nothing.

"No way," Robin walked calmly out of a shadow, with a green gloved hand running through his hair. "No way you heard me, I never made a sound." Robin made a gesture, the spreading of the arms with palms out, a _give me a break_ sort of movement.

"I knew you were there, didn't I?" Batman turned to face his former ward, with an odd little smile on his face. Robin walked towards him, boots thumping slightly on the tarmac.

"So, any luck?" There wasn't any light-heartedness in his voice, he was dead serious. There was more than a few ounces of hope in it though.

"Well, you be the judge." Batman, known to some as Bruce Wayne, tossed the glass tube to Robin. He caught it lightly in both hands, with little effort, and inspected it; Batman could not see Robin's eyes then, but knew that they held a glimmer of hope as they inspected the hair.

"Wow, you did it..." he said, not taking his eyes off the tube, "you really did it." Bruce tried very hard to not take any pride in this praise. For some reason, it didn't seem like the right time to be a braggart. To Bruce Wayne, there was almost none of those times, and certainly not when they were speaking of a human life, perhaps soon to resume.

"Yes, you should be able to replicate the formula pretty easily, as much of it as you need." Batman took a folded piece of paper out of his belt and handed it over, Robin took it eagerly. The boy then turned, his cape wrapping lightly around his shoulder.

"Thanks Bruce, I owe you." He said over his shoulder, and made to leave, when Batman stopped him. Put a hand on his shoulder, keeping him in place.

"Robin.." He hesitated. Robin turned to look at him, he could tell something was bothering the Batman. Bruce wanted to say something, and Robin intended to find out what. He stowed the hair and folded formula in his utility belt and looked up at the man.

"Yes?"

"Dick...you've got the cure now. But are you sure you want to use it?" He spoke in his usual raspy, bass toned voice. It was the type of voice that made everything sound more serious and important than it really was. This, however, was one of those rare times that his voice matched the gravity of what he'd said. Robin looked confused, and pulled the hair back out for a second look.

"What do you mean?"

"Robin, I know that you won't tell me everything that this girl has done. But what you have told me, proves that she is unstable. What's the guarantee that if you reverse whatever it is that's happened to her, that she won't just attack, that she won't just try and kill you all again?" Robin thought of this for a moment, looking squarely at the ground between his feet. Trying to really nail his point, even though it wasn't really necessary, Batman continued.

"I know you want to do the right thing, Robin. But sometimes what is right, isn't what's best. You can't in good conscience save her if it might mean putting the people of this city at risk." Batman waved at the buildings visible from the shore line, all of them black pillars with little squares of light here and there. People burning midnight oil in offices, staying up late and watching talk shows. People doing what people do at night. And that was the problem, Robin thought, _all those people_...

"I won't make this decision alone," Robin finally said, "I'm going to talk to the rest of the Titans first. We'll make the decision, together." Batman looked at the boy for a second, then grabbed him by both shoulders, much softer than he usually grabbed anything.

"Good. But remember Robin, you're their leader. You have to put your needs aside, for the greater good." He looked down into Robin's eyes, or mask, for a few moments, then let go of his ex-partner, current friend, but still looked long at him. Robin turned away, holding the hair in his palm.

"...The greater good..." He fired a line into the nearest building and was gone, in a well practised blur.

Batman was now standing alone, cape wrapped around his whole person, wind slowly kicking up its bottom, making it flutter a little. He shook his head and pressed a button on his belt. Moments later, a sleek, black car shot out of the night and screeched to a halt beside him, its sliding top opening as it did. With one last look at the Tower, home of the Teen Titans, Batman closed the car's door, and was gone.

Terra, it seemed, had a hope, but just a small one.


	2. Chapter 2

2.

When Robin returned, the group was mostly asleep, only Raven and Starfire remained, staring blankly at the television. They both heard the door open, and both noticed the rather depressed, deeply concerned expression Robin wore as he entered the room.

"Something wrong?" Raven said, in a monotonous voice, devoid of any distinct emotion. Her eyes expressed genuine concern, however. Robin, right then decided to sit on the news he had, until the morning. Starfire didn't say anything, but all her feelings were written on her face. Robin could tell that she would be coming to him for some kind of explanation, and let a tired sigh escape his lips.

"No. I'm just tired."

He walked across the room, never lifting his head to look at anything in particular, "Goodnight." That was all he said, and nothing more. He walked by them both and went to his room.

Raven turned back to the television. She didn't know why she was even there, she wasn't watching what was on. To be honest, she wasn't even sure why she hadn't gone to bed yet, it felt like someone was sticking pins into the backs of her eyes, and her arms felt like they weighed twice as much as they should have.

"I think I'm going to bed as well," She said with a yawn, grabbing a couple handfuls of her cloak to keep it off the floor. She had the hood down, hanging around her shoulders. "Goodnight, Starfire." Starfire, still thinking of what could have been wrong with Robin, stirred back to reality. She immediately turned to face Raven, with a huge, Starfire only smile on her face. "Yes, goodnight Raven!" She said, almost overenthusiastically (and probably just a little too loudly). Raven quietly walked to her room. Starfire knew she wouldn't be seeing Raven until morning, sometimes even the early afternoon. Raven never left her room after she went into it, and hated to be disturbed, just ask Beast Boy.

Starfire sat back onto the couch and switched off the TV, she wasn't watching it either. The only reason she was staying up that night at all, was because she wanted to make sure Robin made it home alright. She saw the look on his face as he left earlier, it was that one he always wore when he didn't want to talk about anything. And the way he looked when he came back, like someone he'd been very close to had just died. There was something bothering him, something big. Starfire couldn't stand it any longer, and though it would probably mean being yelled at unfairly by her friend, she decided to get up and go to Robin's room, to see if she could find out what, exactly was wrong.

She leaned in closely to Robin's door, and tapped it lightly. "Robin, are you asleep?" She whispered, this time keeping her voice in close check, trying not to wake him if he was asleep. The door slid open, so fast that Starfire nearly lost her balance from leaning against it. Robin stood there, now absolutely emotionless, and stared down at her as she regained her composure. As soon as she managed to stand, he turned on his heel and went back to his desk, the only piece of furniture visible in his room under the single light hanging from the ceiling. She stood, confused, and feeling oddly vulnerable, at the threshold of his room.

"Come in." He said without looking up. There was something on his desk which was attracting the majority of his attention, and Starfire hoped she was not going to be disturbing him from something important, though she couldn't help feeling a twang of jealousy. She walked slowly, across a room plastered with clippings from local newspapers, most dealing with a most evil man. 'Titans Thwart Slade!' read one, 'Slade escapes from police clutches' read another, 'Slade still on the loose!'. The last one she glanced at before turning all her attention to Robin was perhaps, she thought, the most controversial. It depicted a burnt and partially melted mask, which Starfire knew was now in a box somewhere in the basement, and above it ran, 'Slade Dead!' Starfire thought then, as she'd thought many times before, how odd earth was. She would never be able to celebrate the death of anyone, even someone as vile as Slade.

She reached Robin's side and looked at what so consumed him. It was another newspaper clipping. The picture and the banner headline made Starfire gasp. The picture showed Terra, their former ally, destroying a car with a massive chunk of rock, and above it was printed, 'Teen Titan turns on City!'

"Starfire...?" Robin said, without looking up, it was phrased as a question. He stared intently at the picture, that unflattering picture of Terra, the rage in those eyes, the anger. The sight made Starfire want to cry, but she tried to hold it back, tried to stay strong. But despite her best efforts, her lower lip quivered slightly, and a tear threatened to escape the corner of her eye. As she quietly sniffed it away, Robin continued.

"...Do you ever think about her?" He picked the article halfway off the desk by its top-right corner. Starfire was still looking at the picture, and quietly wiped away another tear before answering.

"I try not to."

As soon as she'd said it, she wished she hadn't. It sounded evil, what she'd said, but it was said with the most innocent of intentions. She didn't think of Terra because of a number of things, but above all else, because of the overwhelming pity she felt for her. Terra had made some horrible mistakes in her life, and nearly destroyed many things in the process. Still, what had happened...no one deserved that. "But yes, I do."

"She nearly killed you...nearly killed us all..." Robin was talking to himself more than anything else, expressing random thoughts.

"Is that what is bothering you so?" Starfire now looked at Robin, and lightly touched his shoulder. Robin raised his arm, and Starfire thought briefly that he meant to cover her hand with his, but he instead started to massage his temples, an expression closely resembling pain etched onto his face.

"Sometimes, everything bothers me." There was exhausted frustration in his words. Starfire lifted her hand off his shoulder like it had suddenly become burning hot, and shortly thereafter Robin stood, leaving the newspaper clipping on the desk in front of him. Eventually, he even stopped looking at it, and turned to face Starfire.

"Don't go anywhere tomorrow, I need to speak to everyone." He disappeared into the dark, leaving Starfire in the lone beam of light. She looked at him until he was nothing more than a nondescript shape in the darkness.

"Ok...goodnight then..." She said, not wanting to leave but getting the definite impression her presence was no longer wanted. Robin made no reply, but she thought she saw him wave his arm. She would never be sure of it though.

She walked slowly down the hall towards her own room, arms crossed lightly in front of her. The image of Terra, at the height of her betrayal, was still eating at her. The way she had acted when they'd first met, all smiles and jokes and happiness, it was infectious in a way that Starfire found refreshing. Those few days when she was with them were amongst the happiest in recent memory, but of course they didn't last. Those smiles and jokes had turned to poison so quickly, almost overnight. The resulting fight had nearly cost them all their lives, and nearly levelled the entire city. That was the day, Starfire thought, that they'd taken that picture of her wreaking havoc on the city, with the angry fire in her eyes. That picture, she realized, frightened her. And Robin, looking so intently at it, like Starfire had never seen him look at anything before. Well, nothing since Slade died. Since Slade had ceased to be in the news, and ceased to darken their view screen with his presence, Robin's mood had gotten much better, he even came close to enjoying himself a few times. But now, he seemed to be preoccupied again. And with Terra no less. Starfire felt a twang of something, what was it? Jealousy?

She put it out of her mind, and went into her room, mentally preparing herself to hear whatever it was that was on Robin's mind in the morning. Whatever it was, it looked like it was causing him pain in some way, it was causing him to suffer, and so was causing Starfire to suffer.

Terra was, once again, causing them to suffer.

4.

Beast Boy was the first to awaken that morning, which made sense, he was the first one to go to sleep. It had been a slow day before that, and slow days were great for putting him to sleep at night, and sometimes the rest of the entire next day, and most of that week. Today, that was not so, however, he found himself getting out of bed shortly after the sun had risen, definitely uncharacteristic, but a good excuse to get some serious TV watching under his belt before noon. He sleepily walked down the hall, raising his hands over his head in an exaggerated stretch before crashing onto the couch with a thud. He grabbed the television remote and flipped the television on, then raised his feet to the vacant space beside him and crossed them at the ankle, and locked his fingers behind his head. Ahhhh, relax mode.

The TV was on a channel showing sports highlights from the previous day, which was fine with Beast Boy, because before the show was thirty seconds old, he was asleep again.

Cyborg awoke to the sound, muffled as it was, of someone snoring close by. He knew that snore, only one person in the tower snored like that; Beast Boy had fallen asleep in front of the TV again. HAH! He'd let his guard down for something nasty, and Cyborg felt compelled to be the one to deliver such a nasty thing. He looked quickly around his room, looking for the one thing, that one holy relic that would be the sword with which he could strike; a box of dirty socks. He didn't wear them, they never really fit his feet (and, to be frank, he thought him with socks on would be a pretty silly thing to see), but he always stowed a few of the smellier specimens from laundry day away for just such an occasion. He found the box tucked under his dresser, and set about rolling them up into one, large, particularly pungent, sock ball. This was the killer diller, the big one, Beast Boy may never be the same after this, a maniacal smile spread across Cyborg's lips, how long would it Take BB to wash the smell out of his hair? The thought nearly made him laugh out loud. He started to slink, silently into the next room.

It was indeed Beast Boy, and he was so asleep, with just a little bit of drool leaking from the corner of his gaping mouth. His snoring was so loud...yet strangely infectious, like some manner of mind control. Cyborg ignored it and stalked his prey, trying to assume the best angle for sock-stink-ball deployment. He held the thing in both hands – and at arms length – and took up position on the other side of the table in front of the couch Beast Boy was currently sawing wood upon. He cocked his arms and made to hurl the ball directly at Beast Boy's head.

"Hey Beast Boy, wakey wakey!" Beast Boy eyes creaked open to the sight of Cyborg about to hurl a large wad of dirty clothes directly at his head. Instantly he was awake and sat bolt upright on the couch, causing Cyborg to drastically alter his aim. He threw the ball and missed Beast Boy's head by the narrowest of margins, and, perhaps worse than that...

"Raven, look out!"

Raven turned the corner into the room just in time to receive the ball of laundry square in the face, knocking her onto her back. She sat for a moment, face up on the floor, covered in perfectly rotten smelling socks, wondering what had just transpired. She knew she'd been hit with something, and it was quickly dawning on her just how badly smelling the thing was. It was the stink of boiled cabbage, mixed with month old fish, she quickly realized she was covered in dirty socks, and felt a rise of anger within her. With definite vexation, if rigidly controlled vexation, she brushed the socks off of her, picking a particularly stinking one out of her hair.

"...yuck."

She tossed the sock aside, trying very hard to contain the anger within her. After a moment of silent meditation, she stood and gathered the ball back together with a wave of her hand.

"You're going to regret that," she said, wearing a maniacal smile of her own. Just as she was about to send it hurtling through space (with quite a good deal of force) in the general direction of Cyborg, Robin rounded the corner, in a decidedly darkened, contemplative state. Starfire followed soon after, not following Robin, but close enough behind him to look like she was avoiding him. She hoped Robin would have some manner of explanation for the unfair way he treated her the night before.

"Everybody sit down, I need to talk to you." Robin spoke in the dignified tone of a leader, but still managed to keep a depressed, deeply serious facade. He remained standing, while the rest of the group sat on the couch in front of him, all of them looking a cross between tired, confused, and just a little uncomfortable. Robin, apparently in deep thought, turned his back on them, pinching his chin between his thumb and index finger. After a time, Beast Boy spoke.

"Uhh, so what's up?"

Robin didn't turn around right away, but when he did, everybody saw what he had in his hand. It was the hair, removed from its glass tube, but still wrapped in the red string. He tossed it down lightly on the table between him and the group. They stared at it for a moment, and no one said anything. Beast Boy suspected, but dared not say what he thought it was. He didn't have to suspect for long, for Robin soon said exactly what Beast Boy was thinking.

"It's Terra's." There was a communal gasp and Beast Boy shot out of his seat.

"But how!" He looked at Robin with an urgent intensity, there was hope in that look as well. He stooped and picked up the hair, instantly recognizing the feel, the look, the smell. Even as a dead lock, cut off and reanimated God knows how, it shone in the light, like spun gold, just as he remembered it. A weight in his stomach lurched, as all the emotions he'd suppressed came rushing back. There was love there, he knew, he remembered. He'd had feelings for girls before, and admittedly, since, but with Terra those feelings seemed more real somehow. He didn't know her long enough to know if what he felt was love, but he suspected it might be, almost hoped it was. He'd long thought what he'd feel if he saw her again, real instead of the tragic statue she'd left behind.

He realized he had a white knuckle grip on the hair, and that everyone was looking at him with mild understanding, and sympathy pain. He ignored them and persisted at probing Robin with his eyes.

"After about a month of her being stuck like that, I carved off a piece of her hair," Robin said, addressing the group, but speaking to Beast Boy, in the same downtrodden tone. "I sent it to a...friend to look at it. He found a cure." Starfire, as Robin was speaking, was developing a large smile, again, as only Starfire could smile.

"Then we can save Terra?" She phrased it more as a statement, but Robin treated it as a question.

"Yes. The question is, do we want to?" Beast Boy looked shocked, almost hurt at the implication, as did Starfire. Cyborg and Raven both looked taken aback, but it seemed not to shock them as much as it did the other two.

"But why wouldn't we?" Beast Boy asked, yelled really. It took a lot to get Beast Boy to raise his voice, indeed, do anything that was near serious. It was clear he held this subject in the most highest, if sensitive, of regards. He stared holes into Robin, his eyes shimmered and burned. Raven spoke:

"What reason would we have to keep her there?" Her voice was ever rational, and her demeanor was calm as usual.

"Because when she was free, look what she did," Robin, for the first time rose his voice, only slightly at first, but increasingly as he went on. "She sold her soul to Slade, scared everyone out of the city, and nearly killed all of us. And to make it worse, she did it all on her own, no one forced her into anything. The situation she's in now," Robin pointed in the imagined direction of Terra's cave, "that's her fault. Everything is her fault!" Beast Boy started to round the table, and stood a foot away from Robin before he spoke again.

"You weren't there at the end, I was!" Beast Boy drove his finger into his own chest. The rest of the group watched in stunned silence as the two argued. "I was there to hear her last words, she was sorry! In the end, she just wanted to stop fighting, just wanted to put things right! Just wanted-" he searched for the right word, "-peace!"

"Some speech about being sorry for all that she did doesn't make it any better. What's the guarantee that she won't go berserk again? Try to kill us all, again?" Robin tried to speak as rationally as he could, without being drawn into a shouting match. His words silenced Beast Boy, but Starfire spoke from behind him, after a moment's pause.

"Robin," she said in an alarmingly cool, calming tone of voice, "has she not suffered enough?" Beast Boy didn't say anything, but looked like he agreed, and redoubled his efforts at staring Robin down.

"Yeah," Cyborg offered, "maybe being down there all this time has changed her." He said it, but didn't sound like he really believed it. All the while Raven looked down somewhere underneath the table which the lock of hair sat on, in silent contemplation. Robin gave her a chance to put her say in, but she said nothing, so he continued.

"I've been thinking of all these things, and I've made a choice."

"You're going to set her free, ri-

"Beast Boy!" Robin held his hand out, palm first, toward his green friend. Beast Boy stopped talking.

"I've decided that this decision is too big for one person. We need to come to a decision as a group, but not for us. We need to consider the world, the people out there, those that we protect. What's best for them. Titan's, tomorrow, we'll have a vote. Think about what letting her free would mean, think of all of it. Tomorrow, the five of us will decide, do we let her out, or not?" Robin planted his hands on the table between them all, and looked at them all. They all looked like they wanted to say something, but couldn't get the words from their brain to their mouths. After a moment, the group started to dissolve, Robin leaving first, and the rest leaving in due course. All the while, each one of them looked like they really wanted to say something, but just couldn't manage it. After they got to their rooms, they all told what they had to say to the walls, which all seemed unsympathetic to the situation.


	3. Chapter 3

5.

Beast Boy slumped into a stiff wooden chair in his room, grinding a palm into his forehead. He felt on the verge of so many things, like relief for one. Long he'd feared that Terra would be quietly swept into the sweet nevermore, and the Titans would all move on without a further thought of her. But this, a vote? Did Terra make that sort of impression on the group? Beast Boy knew how he'd be voted, as did everyone else, he was fairly sure. But the others, he had no idea. The idea that the Titans would actually vote to keep the poor girl frozen in stone was bordering on horrifying, and went against everything he thought the Titans stood for. They had to save her, it was the only option a group of people dedicated to truth and justice had...wasn't it?

Oh, but he could see the argument...out of all the super baddies the Titans had fought in Jump City, she was the one who'd closest to destroying everything, and the closest to killing them all. To release her was to risk a lot, even Beast Boy could see that.

All of the emotions that he'd been repressing since Terra was frozen in stone were flooding back, and hitting him hard. He started to pound his other palm into his knee, over and over, very hard, he didn't know why, and didn't care that it would leave a large fist shaped bruise on his skin at the contact point. He rubbed his face with an open hand, trying to come to some logical thought. Of course he wanted to see Terra again, she wouldn't be like she was, he'd heard her apologize, he knew that. Everyone knew that she was the one that saved the whole city from being buried in molten rock. But...she did so many bad things, to him more than anyone. She broke his heart in so many ways that night at the amusement park. The way she held his arm, laughed at his stupid jokes, walked with him hand in hand, he'd never thought he could be that happy. Then Slade showed up, and ruined everything. Before he was there, there was time, Beast Boy was sure that if Slade had stayed away just a few minutes more, Terra would have told him everything, what she'd done, and the consequences of it. They could have worked it out if he'd just stayed away. That was it, it was Slade that was to blame, to hell with Terra doing it all on her own, it was Slade that manipulated her. If not for him, she never would have done such horrible things. It was Slade...Slade.

He stood and walked over to the desk in his corner, absentmindedly flipping on the radio.

"Hi! You're listening to Bad News Jeff on 109.6, the Shock! We've got another non-stop Shock Box on the way, starting RIGHT NOOOOOOW!" A crushing guitar riff started and the song began. The Shock was a heavy metal radio station which Beast Boy occasionally put on, when he needed to drown out the audio in his own head. As the song played, he opened a drawer in the desk and pulled out an old shoe box, which was covered in a thin layer of dust, and the logo's plastered all over its outside were worn and faded, other than that it was in relatively good shape. It looked as if it held something heavy, for, indeed, it did. He dropped the box carefully onto the desk, tipping the lid off of it as he did. In the box were shards of glass, silver on one side and polished to a mirrorlike reflectiveness on the other. Picking one shard out of the box, Beast Boy held it carefully by the flat sides to make sure he didn't cut himself, and went back in the seat.

He sat, stared at the shard as his brow knit in deep thought, he felt fluid building in the corner of his eye, and tried to sniff it away. It was then, as he noticed the small dollop of Glue gun glue on one side of the glass shard, that the chorus of the song on the radio was played;

Save me from myself,

If you ever really cared!

Save me from myself,

And tell me you're not scared!

Beast Boy let the shard fall to the floor, and broke down into tears, holding his head in his hands.

6.

There was this flashing red light, one in every room of the tower, all of them going crazy, spinning and buzzing. It was the alarm, which meant that somewhere close, the was evil transpiring.

Robin awoke with a start, rolled out of his bed, and crashed onto the floor, dragging two sheets and one pillow along with him. For all the hero jazz he'd done, all the training he'd received, he was just horrible at waking up early.

Still half asleep, and cocooned in his bed dressings, Robin shook his head and looked at the clock on his dresser, it was 5 am, it was sleep time, not loud buzzing alarm time...someone was going to be in big trouble real, real soon. He kicked off the sheets and ran out of his door, meeting everyone else, all of them sharing similar stories of the last several minutes, in front of the immense view screen in the communications room of the tower. On it was the head of someone dressed in a white skull mask, and a dark, impossibly dark black robe. Everyone was gathered around, looking up at him, yawning and stretching. The only one who looked fully alert was Raven, who stood with her cloak wrapped around herself, and the hood of it up over her head, casting a shadow over the whole of her face. She stared at the view screen with its immense white skull, arms crossed and head tilted a little. When the head spoke, however, all of them immediately woke all the way up, and listened to the deep, growling, almost mechanical voice.

"I am the Reaper," it said. Its eyes began to glow a deep, ominous shade of red that made Starfire back up half a step. Robin moved next to her, looked into her eyes, and put a sympathetic hand on the small of her back, which gave her needed strength. Together, they looked back at the screen (Robin silently returning his hand to his side after a few moments, Starfire noticed but didn't voice her feelings of protest).

"I am about to do very bad things, unless someone tries to stop me." He spoke in a sarcastic tone, as if he fully expected the Titans to try to stop whatever it was he was going to do. The truth was, he did expect that, as any criminal in the city could expect it.

"Just tell us where you are, and we'd be happy to oblige," said Cyborg, with a heroic pump of the fist. He was standing beside Beast Boy, who was sporting unusually puffy, bloodshot eyes. Everyone thought they knew why, however, and never did ask him about it.

"Now, now," the head...The Reaper said. "What would the fun be in just telling you?" The screen went blank for a moment, then showed a panoramic view of the city, much like the one you might find on the roof of Titan Tower, but this was from the opposite side of the city, evidenced by the way the Tower slid into the background, behind the wall of buildings.

"In thirty minutes all of this, all you see, will be gone. The only way to stop it, is to come to the place where the earth met the earth, and became one. Hurry up now, my little kiddies, time's a wasting." The screen switched off with a loud click, leaving the room oddly empty and quiet. The Titans all started to look at each other with the same question on their minds, which could be summed up with a resounding '_what?' _

"Ok...so that was different." Raven offered, more to break the silence amongst them than to say anything important.

"Where the earth met the earth?" Said Cyborg, a vexed look on his face.

"And became one..." said Robin.

Beast Boy was only half there for the conversation with the Reaper, but the riddle had caught his attention...earth met the earth? That sounded oddly topical given the situation. Immediately the word 'earth' reminded Beast Boy of Terra, and that sent a hot cramp to work on his gut, but didn't cloud his train of thought. Now, Terra was Latin for earth, which he knew only because Terra had told him once. After that, his train of thought took off, and quickly pulled into the answer station, and for once he had out thought the rest of the Titans, even Robin.

No one noticed Beast Boy as he walked with quick, confident strides towards the exit. He looked determined, he knew where he was going, and went to leave so fast he forgot to tell the group. Starfire turned to look at a sound she'd heard, which turned out to be one of his footfalls, and saw him leaving.

"Beast Boy, where are you going?"

"He said to go where the earth met the earth, and became one, right?"

"Yeah, and that means something to you?" Asked Raven in a tone of voice that was not well suited to the situation, as was her way. As usual her eyes conveyed more emotion than her voice ever could, but they were currently hard to see from under her hood.

"There's only one place where the earth and the earth ever met and became one," he said. "Terra's cave."

Without a word he continued out the door, as the rest of the Titans looked dumbly at each other. All of them wondered if he was right, and how he'd gotten to his perfectly logical conclusion so quickly.

"Well, you gotta admit, the description fits," Robin said after a few moments. The rest of the group tried to come up with some other explanation, but there simply wasn't one. Terra, it seemed, was the hot topic of the day, and about to get a whole lot hotter. They all headed towards the door.

They managed to catch up to Beast Boy only when he stopped in the garage, beside Cyborg's car. They all piled in, but Robin pulled Beast Boy aside when everyone had closed their doors, and put themselves out of earshot. Beast Boy had damp cheeks, he'd been crying again, and Robin couldn't blame him. He could only guess at how hard this all must be on him.

"That was pretty sharp man, you came up with the answer so fast Beast Boy, I'm impressed," Robin said, smiling genuinely, knowing that a genuine smile was something Beast Boy could have done with just then.

"Thanks...guess I've been thinking about her a lot lately...her name means 'earth', and now she is earth. It all just made sense."

"I'm sorry about this, all of this," Robin said. "I wish I could just go and get her out of that rock, but I think you know why I can't, why we all have to think about this."

Beast Boy bit back his initial response of a violent reaction, as he quickly decided it would have been largely inappropriate. He knew exactly what Robin was talking about, he hated to admit it, but he knew.

"Yeah, well, just know what my vote is going to be tomorrow, you can't change it."

"I hope you get what you want." Robin turned round and got into the passenger side seat, beside Cyborg. Beast Boy waited for a moment, with his back to the car, then got into on of the back seats, beside Raven.

"You ok?" she asked casually. Beast Boy turned to face her, eyes still rimmed with pink.

"No, not by a longshot."


End file.
